Greek Euro Exit Seen by Merkel Parties as Costly Gamble

Greek opposition leader Alexis Tsipras won’t get German support for easing austerity, though Greece’s exit from the euro area would be costly for Germany, members of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s two main coalition parties said.

“Europe can’t afford a Greek exit,” Joachim Poss, the Social Democratic Party’s deputy finance spokesman in the German parliament, said in a phone interview. Suggestions by allies of Merkel that the 19-nation currency bloc could weather Greece’s departure amount to “playing with fire at a fragile moment in the stability of the euro area,” he said.